SimCity Offline Arrives for PC and Mac

Those who experienced the launch of SimCity recall the horrors of trying to install and play the game. Many have complained that the forced multiplayer feature, which also (obviously) requires constantly playing online, is stupid and unnecessary, especially for a SimCity game.

They aren't wrong. Multiplayer in SimCity isn't actually building a city together or participating in a meaningful way--you just build cities on adjacent plots and sometimes volunteer or sell resources to your neighbors. It's nothing terribly awesome.

Well, that's changing.

EA has finally done something semi-right. Though the plots sizes will remain miniscule, offline mode has officially launched for PC and Mac, meaning that players can now take their experiences into a single-player mode.

Some changes to note:

Offline means no achievements

Offline means no dynamic pricing for items on the Global Market

No cloud saving when playing offline

Obviously, no multiplayer

No access to SimCity World or leaderboards

Regions may not be transferred between online and offline modes.

While these changes might be annoying in some instances, I'll take them whole-heartedly in exchange for being able to play single-player. Half of the regions in multiplayer are like graveyards, anyway.

However, this does open up a lot of opportunities for modders. Currently, there's a sandbox mode for multiplayer that allows you to change some aspects of the game, but gamers will "...now be able to Mod components of the game without harming the integrity of the Online game. It’s more than just buildings and palette swaps, they’ll be able to dig into the UI, modify the simulation and more. "

Does anyone really care about the things that are missing from the offline mode? I pre-ordered this and all the DLC and expansions as well and overall i've had fun with it. Yet i've never been interested in the achievements, never cared or even looked at simcity world, or the leaderboards, and who cares about 'dynamic' pricing?

We didn't have any of those in Sim City 4 and i still played that game to death.

As for the city size, personally i don't really care about it one way or another. In some ways it's actually better, since the size of the regions in Sim City 4 could be a bit daunting for beginners, and it took a long time to get used to. In that regard SimCity is more user friendly.

Also when i take over a region i sit down outside the game first and work on what's going where. Some cities i devote to industry, others to learning etc etc. The excat same sort of thing i would do with SC4. Even now i can spend upwards of 2-3 hours working out my cities before i even get going on the actual game.

Now i'm not denying EA ruined the game, because they did, and Maxis are just as bad for allowing them to do so. However i have to admit that the game is now in a place that's fun to play. Much like Blizzards diablo 3 is now in a fun place to play after it's disaster of a launch.

Also they have said that they're looking to increase the size of the cities, as are modders, so one way or the other it'll probably happen.

What a mess Simcity has been. EA built the entire thing around a multiplayer focus that nobody wanted and they couldn't support in a process that reeks of upper management memo gridlock. Now the game has a single player that's handicapped by the multiplayer focused design, forcing on it minuscule plots and the like. It is truly amazing how EA has been missing the mark so frequently and been so unapologetic about it.